The “Boys” of the Mt. Whitney Ranger Station; Part 2

Mt. Whitney Ranger Station, Lone Pine, CA – 1969

George Lathrop – drama major. George’s job that summer of ’69, with the US Forest Service, was to cleanup and perform light maintenance on the front country campgrounds. In other words, clean and remove ashes from campfire rings, paint picnic tables, clean restrooms, and pick up trash.

George also wanted to be a cowboy. He bought the hat and the boots. He even boasted he would enter a rodeo and sign up for the bull riding. Remember, George was a drama major. As a joke, we bought him a pair of Mattel Fanner 50 toy revolvers complete with a gun belt. Back then these toy guns looked real and didn’t have the orange tips they have on toy guns today.

One evening we all walked down to Bobo’s Bonanza Cafe in Lone Pine. In lighthearted humor there was a sign just inside the doorway complete with wooden pegs that read, “Hang Your Guns Here”. I laughed and pointed out the sign to George.

With a slight Southern drawl, George in his thespian mode spoke loudly for all the restaurant patrons to hear, “They’ll have to take me first before I’ll give up my guns”.

George, walking bowlegged,  strolled slowly over to a booth with both thumbs hooked into the front of his gun belt, pushed his cowboy hat to the back of his head, and sat down. George was good. He could have played a part in the John Wayne movie we had all traveled to Bishop one night to see; “True Grit”. Yes George was good. Too good.

Whether it was the owner, one of the waitresses, or one of the customers, in about five minutes two Inyo County deputies entered Bobo’s. They headed straight to our booth with hands on their holstered sidearms.

“Why’d you wear guns in here?” one of the deputies asked.

George never said he word. Slowly he pulled his hat down, got all squint- eyed, and started to stand up into a gunfighter’s stance.

It was at this point that an entire contingent of college student – seasonal Forest Service employees shared the exact same thought in a millisecond. Call it instantaneous collective reasoning. As a group we jumped George, ripped off his gun belt, and set the two Mattel toy guns on the table for the deputies.

It was quiet. No one said a word. You could feel the tenseness. George could be arrested. He should be arrested.

One of the deputies reached down and picked up one of the guns. Holding it in his hand he turned it side to side. Then with both hands he opened it up and cracked a small smile. “Hell boy,” he spoke. “You forgot to load these. You didn’t put any caps in these cap guns! Now I’m going to take your gun belt and guns and hang ’em high on that sign by the door. When you leave, you take them home, and you don’t EVER wear them to town again.”

*    *    *

George was driving his Forest Service truck down the highway from Onion Valley Campground, near the Kearsarge Pass trail head, having just cleaned up all the campfire rings. With a shovel he would scoop out all the old wood and charcoal ashes, put them in  plastic garbage bags, throw them in the back of his truck, and drive down to the Lone Pine landfill.

At the end of the workday George told us about his afternoon.

“I was driving in on Highway 395 and people were all so friendly to me,” he began his explanation. “Cars would pass and honk and wave at me. I thought it was nice how many people liked the Forest Service and were letting me know.”

If you got into a truck George Lathrop had been driving you always had to readjust the mirrors. All the mirrors. Both side view mirrors and the rear view mirror. For George would practice his dramatic facial expressions as he drove. He’d study his actor’s face to create different responses: a sneer, a look of cold bloodedness, gaiety.

After driving a while he noticed that people weren’t really smiling as they passed him and waved at him. In a moment of realization George readjusted his rear view mirror. What he saw were flames in the back of his truck.

George pulled to the side of the road and jumped out. It turned out that some of the ashes he collected and put in the plastic bags weren’t all cooled down. Driving at 60 mph on the highway, some hot coals began melting the bags and then were fanned into flames which ignited the broom in his pickup bed.

George finished telling his tale then walked over to his truck. He reached down into the bed. He pulled out a broom handle with just a little tuft of blackened straw. All that remained of his broom.